Compliance Requirements

Compliance requirements are the laws, regulations, licences and standards an organisation has to meet to operate lawfully. In Australia they arrive from three tiers of government at once, Commonwealth, state or territory, and local council. That is why two businesses of the same size in different postcodes can carry quite different obligations.

The baseline most Australian employers share is fairly stable. Work health and safety duties, correct pay and record keeping under the Fair Work Act, privacy obligations and anti-discrimination law apply across sectors. What varies is everything layered on top, and it is driven by what you actually do rather than how large you are. A transport operator carries chain of responsibility duties. A café carries food handling and premises licensing requirements. Labour hire providers need a state licence in some jurisdictions and not others.

Working out which requirements apply is a task in its own right, and it is the step organisations most often skip. The Australian Business Licence and Information Service, run by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, is a free government tool that returns the licences, permits, approvals and codes of practice for your industry and location across all three tiers. It is a sound starting point for building an obligations register, though it will not capture everything you carry as an employer.

The cost of getting it wrong has risen. Since 1 January 2025 the intentional underpayment of wages has been a criminal offence under the Fair Work Act, with maximum penalties reaching 10 years imprisonment for an individual and fines of $7,825,000 for a body corporate. Honest payroll errors remain a civil matter, but the line between the two turns on intent, which is decided after the fact.

Requirements differ across states and territories and change over time, so treat this as general information rather than legal advice and take proper advice on anything material. Once you know what applies, the work is writing it into workplace policies, training people on the parts that touch their job such as internet and social media use, and keeping proof. Sentrient’s compliance training courses cover the requirements most Australian workplaces share.